Glory Of The Football Manager System

”You haven’t said hello properly,” she said.

”I have been distracted by the telly.”

”I noticed.”

”I am undistracted now.”

”Mm. You feel undistracted.” She rolled her hips once into me, slow. Her face changed at what she found. ”Very undistracted, Daniel.”

”That has been the case since the kettle.”

”I knew. The yoga pants were on for that exact reason.”

”I knew you knew.”

”Good. We are on the same page about the yoga pants.”

She kissed me.

The proper one. The Saturday one. She kissed me with one hand at the side of my jaw and the other on the back of my neck.

The bare warm strip above the waistband was under my palm and the working firmness of her ass was under the heel of my hand, and I closed the hand the way I had been closing the hand on her since the bench, and she made the low sound into my mouth that she has been making for three years and that I have not stopped wanting to hear.

She broke off.

”Bedroom.”

”I have a shoot at two.”

”Daniel.”

”And the ground at six.”

”Daniel. You have time.”

I did the maths. The shoot at two meant a car at one. The car at one meant I could walk out the door at twelve forty-five with the navy shirt and the right shoes and damp hair from a shower.

That was four hours and thirty-five minutes from now. Even with the slowest possible reading of the next four hours, I was not actually short of time. I was short of the idea that I had time, because the calendar in my head had drawn a line in red felt-tip at nine in the morning, and the line did not exist.

”You’re doing the maths,” she said. Against my mouth.

”I’m not.”

”You are. I can feel it through your face.”

”I have just finished doing the maths.”

”And?”

”And the answer came out different to the one I expected.”

She laughed against my mouth, low, the laugh I had been doing a count of since the second weekend, and she was up off my lap and pulling me by the front of my T-shirt before I had the chance to revise the maths back.

”Up. Up, Daniel. The shoot at two does not get my hour. The shoot at two has earned itself a quickie and it should be grateful.”

”I had not realised the shoot was getting anything.”

”It is getting what’s left of you. It will have to do.”

I followed her up the stairs. The yoga pants did what the yoga pants did, climbing the stairs in front of me.

Six months of work and the bench-girl from three years ago had turned into a woman who could walk up her own stairs in a way that did damage to a man who was supposed to be at the car park in five hours, and I followed her up them, the way I have followed her up them and into rooms and out of rooms since the second weekend, and she clocked me clocking her and put a small extra sway into the last two steps because she knew I was watching.

She turned at the bedroom door and grinned.

”On the clock,” she said. ”Twenty minutes. Don’t waste it.”

I did not waste it.

The rest is ours and not theirs.

I came down the stairs at with damp hair and a shirt half on.

Emma was on the sofa.

The yoga pants were on the bedroom floor where I had left them and she had not bothered chasing them. She had pulled the long T-shirt back down over the rest of her, folded her bare legs under her, and the coffee was on the side table, the phone face down beside her, and she was waiting for me. Not pretending to scroll. Waiting.

I went and sat back down beside her.

She came across to me without a word. Up against my side, her head on my shoulder, her bare feet tucked in against the side of my leg because she has cold feet and I do not, which is something we worked out in the first month. My hand found the warm bit of her thigh where the T-shirt rode up. She made the small approving sound and settled.

”You smell like my shampoo,” she said into my neck.

”I used the wrong one.”

”It is the right one. You just don’t usually use it.”

”It is a girl’s shampoo.”

”It is mine. I get to decide whose it is.”

”Aye, Em.”

She put her hand flat over the centre of my chest. Slow idle stroke with her thumb. The radiator clicked. A bus went down East Dulwich Grove. A pigeon on the sill outside the window was looking in.

I did not say anything for a while.

I had three hours and a bit before the car. After that the shoot, then Selhurst, then the thing in the safe I had not let out of my sight for a fortnight. Then in the morning, the question. Eight months from now there was a flight to Mauritius she did not know about either. She did not know about any of it.

That was the only square on the calendar that had cost me sleep.

”You’re doing it again,” she said. Not moving off me.

”What.”

”The four-things-at-once thing.”

”Mm.”

”What.”

”Just the day.”

She tipped her face up. Green eyes, two inches off mine, warm and steady. She put a hand on the side of my jaw.

She did not push.

”The day can have you when the day starts.”

”Aye.”

”Right now you are on this sofa, Daniel, and the only thing allowed to have you for the next quarter of an hour is me. The day can wait its turn.”

”It’ll wait.”

”Good.”

She kissed me. Slow. The kind that stayed.

She did not let it go anywhere. There was no time and no need. She broke off and put her face back in the side of my neck, and her hand on my chest did the slow idle thing again, and I held her there with the autumn sun moving across the carpet to where my feet were.

The church on the corner did the quarter to.

”That’s mine,” I said. Quiet.

”I know.”

I sat with her for another minute anyway. She did not stop me.

When I did move I did it properly. I picked the bag up off the hall floor on the way past, came back to her, bent down and kissed her with one hand under her chin and the other in her hair, the long goodbye. She held me there an extra second.

”Off you go, then.”

”Em.”

”Mm.”

”Thank you. For this morning.”

”Thank you for this morning, Daniel Walsh.”

She put her forehead against mine.

”Now bugger off. Don’t be late.”

”I won’t.”

”Ten.”

”Ten.”

I went.